Editorial: A blank slate awaits the voters

Published 8:13 pm, Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Three state Assembly contests in the Capital Region will have with no incumbent running.

THE HOPE:

Could open seats mean real races?

For too many voters in too many parts of New York, this fall's elections for the state Legislature are going to be depressingly difficult. Their choice, in essence, will be whether to re-elect an assemblyman or senator who was party to a broken promise.

Legislators from across the state told their constituents in the 2010 elections that come this year, they would surrender the power to draw new Assembly and Senate districts to an independent, nonpartisan commission.

For all that pledging and grandstanding, the Senate Republicans reneged after the election, and Assembly Democrats joined them in the usual partisan redistricting process. As a result, most New Yorkers can look to more elections in which legislators have effectively chosen their own voters, rather than the other way around.

A rare exception is in parts of Albany, Rensselaer and Saratoga counties. Reform, or at least a small measure of it, comes not through the Legislature's courage or integrity, but instead through the happenstance of retirement.

Tuesday's announcement by Assemblyman Ronald Canestrari, D-Cohoes, that he's not running for another term makes three Capital Region legislators bowing out at the end of this year. Along with Mr. Canestrari, Jack McEneny, D-Albany, is retiring in the 104th District, and Bob Reilly, D-Colonie, is stepping down in the 105th.

To be sure, their retirements will be a loss in many ways to their constituents and to the Legislature. They supported reform measures like campaign finance reform and progressive ideas like gay marriage. Mr. Reilly, a state retiree, gives his legislative salary to charity. Bad legislators they are not. And, having watched these gentlemen over the course of several long careers, we can report that they are fundamentally nice guys.

But their absence from the ballot does stand to give Capital Region voters more of a choice than they might otherwise have had. It means that, in at least three races, the runners will have none of the usual advantages of incumbency, such as a legislator's ability to use official mail for the taxpayer-funded self-promotion that many lawmakers indulge in come election time.

Yes, the Democrats who run in their stead — just like Republicans running for most Senate seats — will have the advantage of lines drawn by the majorities that run the two chambers. The independent redistricting process voters were promised in 2010 is another decade away, at least, and it won't be quite as independent as it could have been.

But circumstances just might give Capital Region voters somewhat more competitive races. And, at the very least, no one running to succeed these three legislators will have been party to the effort to create a political version of a home field advantage. When voters go to the polls, they'll cast their ballots for fresh candidates, not incumbents whose careers were protected by a system designed to keep politicians in power.

As for reform, we'll be looking to those new, would-be incumbents to talk about what it might look like.